Jeff Wall: A Sudden Gust of Wind (After Hokasui), 1993
Jeff Wall’s 1993 photograph “A Sudden Gust of Wind” captures four men walking on a dirt path over a river. The man farthest to the left is holding some papers with the rest flying in the wind away from him. The papers fly up at an angle, over the other three mens heads, away from the man on the left. The man second to the left looks as though he is holding a stick of some sort, but it is hard to make out, and he is looking at the ground, perhaps trying to protect himself from the wind. The man third from the left has his arms spread out and is looking up at the papers. The man on the far right is ducking and holding on to his hat. I think the background is really interesting in this picture because it looks as if they are out in the middle of no where, and there seems to be a city landscape in the distance. Additionally, the two trees, one with leaves and one without, blowing in the wind seem to be the only trees in the middle of the large field. I think this tableau photo from Jeff Wall is really interesting because before reading about Jeff Wall and tableau photography I first looking at Jeff Wall’s photos and this one in particular stuck out to me because I almost thought it looking more like a painting in the way in which it was so perfectly composed and captured. After then reading more about Jeff Wall I realized this is one of the things he strived for when capturing images. Jeff Wall has a quote of “I begin by not photographing” which I think is really interesting and a special way of going about photography because why rush to capture a shot in the moment when you can remember the composition of a potential “photo” that you see on the street and then recreate it later.
Jeff Wall: A Sudden Gust of Wind (After Hokasui), 1993. Retrieved from: New York Times Magazine https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/magazine/25Wall.t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0